At the World Trade Center Mall, honoring heroes is an everyday thing
Outside the Oculus, the skeletal edifice that houses the World Trade Center’s transportation hub, thousands gathered this week to honor American heroes who lost their lives there on 9-11. Inside the Oculus, Westfield’s mall has been honoring America’s military heroes ever since it opened a year ago. Before any store opened its doors, Westfield staged a job fair aimed at enlisting veterans to come to work at Ground Zero.
Bill Hecht |
It was two years ago that Bill Hecht decided to jump with both feet into a chain-wide community program for Westfield. The then new COO started with a desire to help veterans and a logical notion: get the community-minded people within the company to get the project going.
“I was keenly interested in doing more to help the veterans,” said Hecht, whose father was a veteran of World War II and the Korean Conflict. “I sent out a note to the company at large to see who else might be interested and I got responses from over 100 people.”
The big mall owner now has 50 employees involved in the Westfield Veterans Initiative (WVI), which provides veterans with one-on-one mentorship opportunities, supports retail entrepreneurship, and drives awareness for issues faced by transitioning service members.
Early on, WVI formed a relationship with The Rosie Network, an organization founded by Navy SEAL spouses to help counteract high unemployment rates among transitioning veterans through entrepreneurship. In July, Westfield Mission Valley in San Diego sponsored a Rosie Network Veteran Business Showcase where 29 veterans and military spouses were allowed to display their wares.
“Thanks to Westfield, our military entrepreneurs have a meaningful way to connect directly with consumers,” said Rosie Network founder Stephanie Brown.
The National Retail Federation and its RISE Up Initiative partnered with WVI at a veteran’s job fair at its Century City mall in June to advise veterans on how to acquire the necessary skills to turn retail jobs into promising careers in the industry.
The Veteran’s Initiative has taken root at Westfield, and Hecht says the experience has been as rewarding for Westfield and its employees as it’s been for veterans.
“One of the most pleasant outcomes of this program has been the involvement of a wide variety of different employees,” he said. “Leaders have emerged from this project who were not among the most senior people in the company.”
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